Menu

Tag Archives: poetry

Today, November 11th, Canada recognizes the courage of men and women who have served our country in the Air Force, Army, and Navy of the past, and those who serve today. Abbey shared this beautiful poem on her blog. I have included the questions that she added following her post because I know they’ll get you thinking.

We Will Always Remember Them

For those who fought,for those who died,for those who lived,for those who tried,and for those who saved our Canadian lives,we will always remember them.

For those who risked their courageous lives,who left their daughters and their wives,who fought at war and gave us peace,we will always remember them.

I hoped you liked my poem as much as I liked writing it! Please tell me in the comments if you have any favorite poems about Remembrance Day, if you made up any poems, or comment on what Remembrance Day means to you! (Just some suggestions on what to comment ) ; )

Well, you may have figured out that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was not in our classroom–though somehow his gentle smile and warm laugh made him feel very near. He was in Vancouver to meet with students and educators at the Youth Heart-Mind Summit. The theme was Be the Village. Through the wonders of technology, we joined classes from many locations to watch and listen to a conversation he had with high school students. The topic was about cultivating kindness, empathy, and compassion in all people. I have to say, I was very impressed with the poise of the grade 12 MCs and panelists. How very thrilling that day must have been.

Can you imagine being on that stage?

As well,Shane Koyczan, a fabulous spoken word artist (I think “poet” works for me) performed. More about that in another post. And more about Heart-Mind learning later.

Back Channel

Using Netbooks and Backchannel Chat during the presentation

We tried something new while watching. We had our first Backchannel Chat, an online private virtual conversation room which each student accessed via our Netbook laptops. The chat gave us an opportunity to discuss our thoughts, observations, and questions among ourselves. I purchased a year-long access to the features of Backchannel Chat for about $16.00 to give me access to all the features of the program.

I learned a lot from this experience. So did the students, as you’ll see. Not everything was positive, but it was not a complete failure either. If other teachers have tried or are considering using a back channel, I’d appreciate your feedback.

Here are a few screenshots of the archived chat (click thumbnails to enlarge). I sprayed out the names as I promised the students this analysis was not about embarrassing anyone, it was about finding solutions.

Excitement!

The poetry really resonated.

Twenty eight people say hello, many times.

Worrying about battery life.

When you can’t hear, you focus on the trivial.

Maybe too many voices at once?

Admiration for Shaun Koyczan.

When they could hear and understand the Dalai Lama, the comments were more thoughtful.

We broke into groups of four and wrote Plus – Minus – Solutions posters. Students talked about and recorded their thoughts, then shared with classmates.

Plus-Minus-Solutions

I’ve summarized their feedback:

Pluses:

It’s a great way to show what you’re thinking and see what others are thinking.

You can see what others think of your ideas–they can respond to you.

You can respond to the entire class more easily.

It stays quiet while a presentation is on.

Someone is able to moderate the chat.

As the chat went on, people were more serious and on topic.

We become more tech savvy.

Minuses:

Because the sound quality of the webcast was poor and because we are not used to the Dalai Lama’s accent, we couldn’t hear very well and comment meaningfully.

Some people didn’t know what they could write about.

Some students got off topic fast and began talking about battery life, naming favourite actors, injecting hashtags, and making other random, pointless comments.

A conversation about the Dalai Lama’s nationality, appearance, and ethnicity lead to misunderstanding and maybe some hurt feelings. (We processed this after the fact.)

Some students used texting language.

Too many one word comments reduced the usefulness of the chat and made information flow too quickly.

Some students logged in and out to change their name and their avatar, wasting time.

Solutions:

Create criteria for comments that everyone follows. (Yes, that came from the students!)

Think before you type!

Run two different chats so people can read and respond to the comments. This would slow the chat down.

We need to work on writing complete, thoughtful, on-topic sentences.

Have more than one person monitoring the chat.

People who are disrespectful or off topic would be warned and then would be kicked out of the chat.

Final Thoughts
I learned so much from the experience of this back channel about my student’s strengths and needs. I had no illusions that it would be a flawless event, but I sense that taking a risk with this technology will be rewarding for us.

The next time we use Backchannel Chat as a learning tool, we will share our results here.

Do you have suggestions? Are there other tools that can help encourage dialogue about big ideas? Does communicating in virtual space improve or inhibit dialogue when we are face to face? Please share your thoughts in a comment.

(We are really fortunate to have the beautiful Lazo Woods right behind our school. We went out on “solos” to find poetry–record our observations and inspirations–and later, to read in the woods. Each student submitted just one favourite line in the poem below–in order of their last name. Even though the lines are random, the poem has unity.)

Dark green
The board shimmered not black, but evergreen

The humming wings of the fluttering bee
Soaring raven

Dandelion seed lightly flutters down through the breeze
A shadow moves through the forest

The sun is so bright you can close your eyes, face the sun and still be blinded
For a tree cannot stand alone

Boulders poking up from under the moss and dirt
The bright sunlight gleaming through the trees
Green moss crawls up the trees

Baby raven oh so fun waiting for it’s mom to come!

The forest is a quiet place to work
Pushed aside the cedar grows lonely

Trees tower like city buildings
The forest gets older

The sun peeks through the swaying trees.
Big bugs buzzing
Leaves glowing like emerald
Sun peeking through the trees

Twigs crack, birds sing, the story of the forest silent, until you listen
Salal covers the forest floor like a carpet

A picture + your imagination = ?

Here is an opportunity for creativity and experimentation. We will be exploring the possibilities at a site called PicLits and embedding our best ideas on our blogs. Always curious to see what you come up with, Huzzahnians.

Although we would never dig in the woods, we mined a rich vein of poetry during our afternoon of quiet reflection in the Northeast Woods and Lazo Marsh. Here is a handful of diamonds from student poems: